Fab Seeking To Raise $100M At A Super Fab Valuation
Earlier today we spoke to Fab.com CEO Jason Goldberg at TechCrunch Disrupt, on the anniversary of his company’s pivot from gay social network to design-focused flash sales site, and a week after its mini-pivot to curated social shopping site.
In addition to expounding on the past, Goldberg spoke about his expanding vision for the new eCommerce, and how he saw Fab as essentially competing with retail giant IKEA, rather than other eCommerce sites like One Kings Lane and “some companies that recently went public.”
During the talk, the fact that Fab was raising another Series C round was alluded to, “nine figures” at a valuation of over a billion according to one source. After some investigation, we’ve figured out that Fab is indeed looking to raise $100 million, and according to two of those sources the valuation is under $1 billion, at $700 million pre-money.
In addition we’re hearing (we keep hearing things) that VC firm Atomico has already expressed interest in dropping $50 million into the pot, and existing investors have committed to $25 million. We’re also hearing(!) that Fab might have even higher offers and hasn’t committed to anything just quite yet.
The company has good reasons to keep its options open; A little over a year after Goldberg made the decision to change course, the company has amassed over 4.5 million users, over 2 million orders and will surpass $100 million run-rate in 2012, hoping to garner a half a billion in revenue by 2013.
Link: Fab Seeking To Raise $100M At A Super Fab Valuation
Got Pot? Leafly Can Help
During my daily combing of tech news feeds/breaks to learn more about the wide world of drugs, I stumbled upon this interesting little service called Leafly. Essentially, you hop on over to Leafly.com to do one of two things: find local dispensaries or explore various strains of the Mary Jane.
But the set-up is quite nice, and with Marijuana legalization becoming a matter of when and not if, it could become a pretty huge part of the medicinal marijuana industry. The industry rivaled that of Viagra revenue in 2011 at around $1.7 billion, and is expected to reach $8.9 billion in 2016, according to a March 2011 See Change Strategy Report.
So, what could essentially become the Yelp of gooey greenery is exciting to come across.
The strain explorer lets you choose between various medical uses (think depression, insomnia, lack of appetite, and PMS), as well as options for desired effects (such as aroused, hungry, sleepy, tingly, and uplifted). Strains are then neatly displayed like tiles on the Periodic Table, color-coded to identify Indica, Sativa, or a hybrid.
Once you choose a strain, you can view reviews, check out the details on that strain, view images, and check locations near you where you may procure your desired strain of pot.
The dispensary locator is equally straight-forward. You enter your zip, or city and state, and the site generates a map with little tags for different locations. If you click through, you’ll be taken to a page about that specific dispensary, which includes a menu, reviews, and photos.
Leafly has apps on the App Store and in Google Play, and there’s even an iOS app meant for dispensary use that displays up-to-date data on your club’s menu, ratings, reviews and pricing info.
Read more: Got Pot? Leafly Can Help